July 6, 2008

• After a couple of very busy weeks I think I'm finally going to be able to update on a more regular basis. Let's go back to Thursday, shall we?

  With Friday being the holiday, I suggested to everybody that we all go out to dinner at Giordano's. It was during dinner that I had a most excellent idea. I'm going to start a pizza club. What the hell is a pizza club you ask? Well, since I'm a pizza freak and some of my friends are pizza freaks, we are going to pick a different pizza joint to eat at each month. Living in the Chicagoland area, we have no shortage of great pizza places. Now I just have to write a "Pizza Oath" and then start eating. When I told Dave about my idea, he instantly was on board and started naming a bunch of different places to go to. He pretty much had the first 12 months planned out, however I don't know about some of the places he mentioned. This should be a good way for us to get some good ass pizza even if John does bitch and moan about some of the pizza we have.

  After dinner the plan was to go to Clem's. First I was going to stop off at Keith and Heather's house though. On my way I got a call from Dave asking to pick him up. He was all the way on the other side of Romeoville and I was still in Naperville on my way to Bolingbrook which is not really near Dave. At first I kinda rebuffed him and told him to ask John to pick him up. Of course, I knew John would not pick up him, so I quickly had a change of heart and picked up Dave. Now I know what some of you might be thinking "why doesn't Dave drive himself?" Well, I've always considered it a public service that I could provide to the community to keep Dave off the road. And that's when he has not been drinking. And since I knew Dave would not come out unless I picked him up and I wanted him to go, I picked him up.

  One thing I hate when playing pool is when strangers come up and ask if they could play. As we played pool (there were 6 of us there) there was this one older, creepy, Republican lookin dude who kept staring at us. He walked up and asked Jt and Dave who was in charge. Dave pointed to me, Jt pointed to John. So of course the guy came up to me. He asked what he needed to do to play. I explained to him that we pay by the hour and that he needed to talk to the bartender. He said again in a stern manner "no, I'm asking YOU what I need to to do to play? What do I need to pay?" I again referred him back to the bartender. He then said "I've been watching you guys play and I'm gonna play you, take this table from you and then you guys are going to pay me to play."  As my blood pressure rose, I again told him that we pay by the hour and he needed to talk to the bartender (who by the way would totally tell him that we have the table and he is just basically shit out of luck). Keith then jumped in and explained to him that we have paid for the the table and had even teams and were not playing with anybody else. The guy then said with a stunned look on his face "so what, you are saying I can't play?" Keith told him that we pretty much had the table and he would have to wait until we were done. The guy stood there for a second with a look of utter disdain before walking away. He sat up at the bar and frequently glared back at us waiting for us to finish. After a while he just left.

  As for the rest of the night, we wound up having a great time, even Jt came out. He and I got along fine, talking and interacting like it was no big deal. The whole night Dave kept implying that he wanted to go to Denny's afterwards by saying "MEATLOVERS SKILLET!" See, Denny's was a big thing for Jt, Dave and I back in the day. We have probably............no, there is no probably about it, about 10 years ago we spent more time than most people should be allowed to spend at Denny's. We were pretty much at the bar until it closed at which time Dave and I decided to go to Denny's, although nobody else wanted to go. Jt said he was just going to go home and quickly left. While on our way, Dave called him to try to talk him into going. He told Dave that he didn't want to go because I was going. Needless to say this kinda pissed me off. Here I thought all of that other bullshit was in the past and all was forgiven, but I guess not. All I know is that he needs to grow the fuck up.

  As for Denny's, I saw something there that night that I aint ever seen before. For starters, they had changed things around a little and we wound up at a table and in a section that we had never sat at before. I didn't like it much but what could we do? When we got there shortly after 2 in the am, we saw 2 guys sitting at a nearby table. One of them was a pretty big guy who was passed out drunk at the table. Ok, not just passed but fucking comatose at the table. the manager and waitress were trying to wake him up. He moved his head for a second but then put his head right back into his arms on the table. So, the cops were called in. This is when Dave and I started to debate what would happen next. Dave insisted that the guy was going to be arrested. I said that he would not be arrested but instead just made to leave, if not on his own power then they would have to drag him out of there. Dave said that the guy would be arrested for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace to which I replied "the guy is passed out, how the hell is he disturbing the peace? If anything, they are disturbing his peace". Shit, even our waitress said he wouldn't be arrested. Dave bet me $5 that he would be arrested.  Meanwhile, the cops tried to awaken him but to no avail. After about 10 minutes, the paramedics showed up. They tried to wake him but had no luck. You can pretty much guess what happened next. They had to get the stretcher and physically remove him from the booth. He was so big that it took 2 cops and 2 paramedics to remove him. And he never woke up the whole time. And no, he wasn't dead, I could see he was still breathing. Seeing something like this is a total Dave and Mike Thing. Dave and I always seem to see the strangest shit or have the oddest things happen to us. And its usually when its only the 2 of us hanging out, although throughout the 15 years we have been friends others have been a party to the strange shit too.

  The 4th of July was baseball. We had a small game of 5 on 6. I was on the team with 5 guys. This put me in centerfield which kept me plenty busy. As for the game itself, nothing too exciting, we had fun but lost. Afterwards we went back to my house to bbq and then later watch fireworks. It was pretty low key but all around a good day.

  Yesterday was Dave's favorite day of the year: the day we go to the Taste of Chicago. Its also the only day we let him drive. He and Kelli picked me up about 11:40 and we were on our way. Somehow we managed to have the best parking we have ever had for the Taste. We always park in a parking garage and always manage to park on the opposite side then we should be parking. But, this time we parked right next to the street we needed to be on and right across the street from the entrance into the Taste. This worked out well because we only had a couple of hours to spend so we need to be quick. As usual the food was outstanding, I always make a point to try something I've never eaten before. I had my eyes on shark, but it was 9 tickets (I think each ticket was about 75 cents) and I didn't want to waste 9 tickets on something I might not like. I tried to talk Dave into going half with me but he was not interested in the least. Looking back, I regret not getting it, it would have been nice to at least try it. I did however try these vegetarian bbq tips that were actually pretty good. The best thing I ate though might have been the simplest. It was this watermelon Italian ice. It was unbelievable how good this was considering how simple it was. We wound up leaving the taste about 2:20 and I was home by 3.

  Last night I had an a last second date with this guy I have been chatting with on Yahoo, Luke. He lives in Crest Hill. He was cute and a little taller than I expected. He seems very nice and was very social. We hung out, watched a movie before grabbing something to eat. I had a nice time and wish I had more time to go into more details, but let's face it this post is kinda long already.

  After the date (at least, I think it was a date) I went over to Keith and Heather's for a burn. It wound up being just me and them as everybody else was busy or canceled at the last minute.

  That's all for now people. I'm sure I forgot about some stuff but that's your fault for not taking notes.

  • 2:00 pm
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